Scheherazade: Nights 1-3

By J R C Salter

The Sassanian Empire is ruled by a ruthless King who marries a different woman every night and orders her execution the next morning. With the population running thin of potential brides, Ismail is tasked with finding the new queen.
So when his own daughter offers to marry the king herself, Ismail is horrified. She has a plan, though. She can save herself. She can save her father. And she can save every woman who still draws breath in the Empire. And it all begins with a story.
A retelling of the classic series in a modern style. Comprising all one thousand-and-one nights, this series will be published in volumes collecting either single stories, or compilations of shorter works.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J R C Salter
• Release date: Apr 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370849185

J R C Salter

J R C Salter was born in the English Westcountry in the mid-Eighties, the first child of Karen and David, and he has two brothers and one sister. He trained and practiced as a chef for many years, and now he works as a barista while publishing books on the side, with the aim of becoming a full time author. He still likes to cook, and enjoys baking cookies, as well as reading, coding, and making giant Star Wars models from Lego. He currently lives in the small town of Cullompton in Devon, and his main inspirations are Tolkien, and the works of Joss Whedon.

Book preview

Preface

1001 Words

I have loved the Arabian Nights since I was a child. There was a book I remember reading by Amabel Williams Ellis that introduced me to the concept of the Nights. Unlike other fairy tales I was often told in my youth, these ones seemed exotic and told of far away lands. Let’s face it, the ‘land, far, far away’ that was common in many children’s stories was still a variation of some Germanic or other European kingdom. It had the same kind of customs and culture as I saw around me.

But the Arabian Nights? This was a story of genies, and sultans, and places so different to my surroundings. And of sherbet; I can tell you that the idea of people drinking sherbet sounded ludicrous to an English boy whose only experience with that word was of the Fountain variety. And who thought it was pronounced ‘sherbert’ until well into adulthood.

I was also fascinated with the idea of a person telling stories over the course of a thousand and one nights, constantly stopping just as the story is reaching an interesting moment. Scheherazade truly is one of the great storytellers of literature, and I would argue, one of the greatest women in all of literature.

Historically Arabian culture has not been kind to women, and this story starts off with an extreme example of such, but Scheherazade steps up to save other women at great risk to her own. And she does it with no sword, no violence, no calls to revolution. She does it with a story.

In many other cases, the easy way out would have been to kill Shahriyar, but I am always more interested in non-violent alternatives. It’s one of the many reasons I enjoy Doctor Who, and can be seen in the success of real people like Ghandi. The question of how to solve a problem without resorting to violence always requires more thought than simple assault. And is usually much more satisfying and effective, from a storytelling point of view as well as in the real world.

The book I read was illustrated by Pauline Baynes who leant some evocative line drawings to the story to bring it to life. Again, something that was wholly different from what I was used to at the time, but is something that will always take me back to those Summer days reading that book.

Soon I grew up though, and I wanted to read the original works, and to see how Scheherazade told each story in order for them to end at precisely the right moments. Unfortunately, this was rather difficult in the pre-internet days, as the entire set currently occupies some 10-16 volumes.

The closest I got was in our school library where nobody goes. Here was filled with a load of classic books. The likes of Charles Dickens, and Homer, and all those other things that are boring to most teenagers. But it was there that I found the Thousand Nights and a Night by Richerd F. Burton. I think. I didn’t take too much notice of who wrote it then, but after researching the subject, I’m fairly certain it was his.

However, this was a truncated form of the Nights. It held much more than my children’s version, but not everything. However, it did give me a little more insight into what the original stories were like. Primarily in one aspect.

They are not for children.

Elements of the adult nature remain in the bastardised versions for kids; the murderous reign of King Shahriyar is a good example. However, when I read the ‘Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad’, it became apparent that this may not actually be suitable for keeping in a secondary school. Of course, I kept shtum about it because as a teenage boy I never wanted to tell anybody that I had been reading about naked ladies.

So a few years went by and though I never really looked for it, I found a complete set of Richard F. Burton’s translations. 10 volumes for the main text, with a further 6 for supplementary material!

So a lot of stuff then.

Other translations exist, but his seemed to be the most complete and true to the original works. And as I do not speak Arabic, this was the closest I could realistically get to them. But they were hard going. He used a lot of poetic prose in the works which would not be to the tastes of modern audiences.

And as an author who writes what he wants to read, I thought what better thing to do than to do my own retelling? So I did.

This series is planned to include every single one of the Nights, and every single story in some form or other (though if you read some stories, you’ll know that they don’t all fit modern styles on a fundamental level). I am treating this as a single piece split into volumes where each night is a chapter, and each volume is a main story, or collection of stories. Eventually, you should be able to follow Scheherazade’s journey by reading a single chapter every night, and be forced to wait until the conclusion the following day.

Of course, if you know anything about the Nights, you are aware that there are certain stories that are not in the original Nights. ‘Aladdin’, and ‘Ali Baba’ are the most prominent ones, despite being synonymous with the Nights. I will still include these stories, as they are now unofficially a part of the work, and are expected. I will also include much of the material in Burton’s supplemental volumes as well.

This will be the beginning of a long journey for me, as I am not the storyteller Scheherazade is, but it is a journey I do hope to finish. So, take a cup of sherbet, sit down, and let me tell you a story to while away the hours until dawn.

J.

Scheherazade

Ismail al’Basir watched as the young woman walked up to King Shahryar. He hadn’t tried to find out her name. Not anymore. That just made it more difficult.

The officiant usually asked people to settle down at this moment. At any other wedding at least. But here the congregation was silent in mourning. Everyone knew what would happen tomorrow.

‘Do you, King Shahryar of the Sassanian Empire, wish to accept Budur al’Jalis as your wife?’ the officiant said to the king. Ismail closed his eyes at the mention of her name. Budur. What kind of life had she led up to this point? Was she the